In the past several years, social networking websites have changed from a fad used by a small number of technology-savvy individuals to some of the most trafficked websites with hundreds of millions of subscribers. Facebook®, the most popular social networking website, has become the second most frequented website in the world, after the search engine Google®. Social networking sites provide the opportunity to contact individuals throughout the globe quickly and easily with no investment other than a computer or a “smart” phone and an Internet connection.
Whereas most of the currently available social networking websites are directed towards personal use by allowing communication between individuals regarding friendships, dating status, photos, travels, and allowing professional networking such as found in the LinkedIn® network. There are no social networking sites directed towards investors interested in communicating with other investors, tracking their investments, researching investments, and buying or selling financial instruments. Investors must rely upon information in making informed decisions whether to buy, sell, or hold their financial instruments and require information regarding the price of stocks, which stocks or commodities are “hot,” whether a new bond issue will take place, whether the value of a foreign currency will come up or down, etc. Serious investors are also interested in being able to buy or sell stocks, commodities, bonds, foreign exchange, futures, and other types of financial instruments easily.
Presently, social networking websites are directed towards facilitating personal relationships between individuals and at best, allow general professional communication. They are not directed towards investing and do not possess functionalities to most efficiently allow investors to communicate regarding their investments and portfolios. They also do not let investors obtain information regarding their financial instruments. Finally, they also do not allow actual trading of financial instruments.
Online trading of stocks, commodities, bonds, foreign exchange, futures, and other types of financial instruments are well known. These websites, however, do not allow an individual to communicate with other investors; at best, they allow communication with brokers and other professionals. Typically, they merely allow the purchase or sale of financial instruments and the individual purchaser must rely on information obtained from other sources, often not at the same time as making the transaction.
Accordingly, there is a need to address at least one of the above or other disadvantages.